DIY Gallery Wall
With vaulted ceilings in the living room/dining room and front entry area, we had a few really tall walls that were begging to be decorated. The wall across from our staircase, in particular, had a lot of potential for a grand display of images. For awhile, we hung five 16×20 prints from our wedding on that wall. We have really awesome photographs from our wedding, but after awhile I began feeling a little narcissistic having so many hung in a row of just ourselves. And, I got sick of looking at us.
So, after the walls had been painted and the tile was done, I began tackling a gallery wall layout for that wall. We installed tall white trim and, at the time, I was really into white on the neutral paint colors. I still like that look – it’s so crisp and clean.
I searched on Pinterest for some ideas and came across this one from Martha Stewart. I really liked how uniform it was. It had that slight variation that I love about a gallery wall, but also some order to it. Michaels’ craft store just so happened to have a whole bunch of frames in their seasonal section during this time and they were a really good buy. I don’t shop Michaels’ regularly that often anymore, but I haven’t been able to catch similar frames for such a good deal there since! Luckily IKEA has an awesome assortment of frames.
Mission: Create a gallery wall of frames.
Step 1: Purchase frames in different sizes.
They can be all the same color (I used white) or varying colors.
Step 2: Lay it out.
Use paper cut closely to the size of the frames to lay out your gallery wall.
Step 3: Hang Frames
After we determined a layout we liked, we got all the frames up on the wall. Having the frames up before framing the poster prints and photos we wanted to use helped me visually decide how I wanted the colors and photos/prints to flow.
Step 4: Obtain photos/poster prints to put into frames.
I used a variety of poster prints that I made based on ideas I found on Pinterest in addition to family photos and photos from our travels. There are a lot of other bloggers that post free prints that are awesome as well.
I tried to tie the prints I made into the color scheme I was going with at the time – which was kind of a crazy mix of bright colors.
I had most of my photos printed at Costco. They offer a really nice quality at a great price – can’t beat that! They also offer oversized poster prints, which I needed for my larger frames. Staples also does a nice job with prints, especially if you want a less photo-y look. They have more paper options.
Step 5: Frame and hang.
With all our supplies and everything in place, we simply removed the frames from the wall, popped in the photos and voila! Gallery wall complete.
As easy as it sounds, this took me months to complete – mostly because it required some time to buckle down and get everything I wanted in order.
